Joey Aguilar passes Erik Ainge with third-most passing yards in single season for Vols

NASHVILLE — Tennessee senior quarterback Joey Aguilar moved up on the single season all-time passing leaderboard for the Volunteer program on Tuesday in the 2025 Liberty Music City Bowl against Illinois, passing Erik Ainge for third all-time.

After completing a 10-yard throw to Mike Matthews in the third quarter, Aguilar moved by Ainge to No. 3 in Tennessee program history with 3,528 single season passing yards at the time.

Peyton Manning’s 3,819 yards in 1997 is the program leader for passing yards in a season. Entering the day, Tyler Bray was second with 3,612 in 2012 and Erik Ainge was third with 3,522 in 2007. Aguilar needed just 79 yards to pass Ainge for third place, 169 yards to pass Bray for second place and 376 yards to supplant Manning as the program leader for a single season.

Aguilar led the Southeastern Conference with 3,444 passing yards in the regular season. His 157.1 QB rating ranked third in the league and his 24 touchdown pass tied for fourth in the regular season. The quarterback gained another 257 yards (before sacks) on the ground with three additional touchdowns as well in 12 games ahead of the Music City Bowl.

The quarterback accounted for four 300+ yard passing games with a season-high 396 yards against Kentucky. Aguilar threw for four touchdowns (five total touchdowns) in the loss to Georgia and tossed a trio of touchdown passes against Syracuse, UAB, Kentucky and Oklahoma. The signal-caller threw for at least 200 yards in all 12 games and accounted for multiple scores in all but four contests.

Tennessee accumulated 64 plays of 20+ yards on offense in 12 games in 2025. Aguilar accounted for 40 of those plays through the air and three on the ground. The quarterback went 26-for-57 (45%) for 1,013 yards and 13 touchdowns with three interceptions on passes 20 yards or more down the field in the regular season.